Midnight Conversations
by myloveimfaithfullyyours
Summary: He closed his eyes, thinking over and over to himself, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy, but then his mind went back to the baker with her head rested on his chest breathing ever so slightly, her bosom heaving up and down with each little gasp of a breath. Corsets." R&R!


Authors Note: Nutty Season is over, so I have some time to write and it's finally winter break. School is just crazy. Really all I can say is crazy. Here's the newest of my stories, please leave a review. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: Characters don't belong to me. Plot is mine. Spot the _Conversations With Other Women _quote.

Midnight Conversations

He never really left his shop. The outside wasn't cold enough for him. The air wasn't crisp enough, it didn't feel stuffy, and it didn't smell enough like the prey of a vampire left over from last night to rot on the freezing hard wooden floor. Even in the snowiest of days, when the streets where blanketed in a thick layer of white and all the citizens of London had somehow found a fire to crowd around, he didn't dare go outside.

Tonight was different though. In the darkness of Christmas Eve, in the middle of the night, either really early in the morning or really late at night, he crept down the creaky stairs into the foggy streets of London. He avoided restless cats, and dodged the bright gas lamps, illuminating the darkness, but once he turned the corner, the silhouettes of buildings vanished, and his shadow stood alone in the alleyway.

He breathed out deeply, exhaling just to see his breath, and make sure he was still alive. He kicked a figure on the ground hard, in his mind seeing the judge's face appear, cowering back and screaming for his worthless life, but when he snapped back into reality, he was just kicking some dead corpse, probably frozen to death.

All of a sudden, he was no longer alone. Another shadow crept along the brick walls, hard boots softly tapping on whatever sidewalk was visible through the dirty snow. "I see you." The voice said, and didn't dare come any further, standing on the opposite side of the alleyway. Mrs. Lovett. His thoughts automatically directed. Her voice was all too familiar to forget. "What are you doing out here in the dead of night, didn't follow me did you." He asked in his gruff voice, still standing at the other side of the alleyway.

She snorted, "no, I like to take walks in the middle of the night, what are you doing out here?" She questioned, whispering just loud enough for the both of them to hear from the distance in between them. "I couldn't sleep." He said, looking in the opposite direction, again towards the gas lights, though he couldn't see her eyes anyway. "Thinking about you girl, were you?" She inquired. "Johanna?" He asked as if it wasn't obvious, pain flooding his voice. "We'll get her back." Mrs. Lovett said, almost too confident in her own words.

"You don't know that." He said, looking down at his feet. "But my instinct tells me so, and Mr. Todd, my instinct 'as neva been wrong." She shook her head, though he could barely make it out. "Did you're instincts tell you that I was going to be sent away?" He asked, his tone nearing sarcasm. "Hm, was too young an' innocent to have instinct back then. Wasn't tha' careful." She shrugged.

A thick silence rushed through the distance between them, and neither of them spoke. She took a step closer, and whispered, "she always asked about you," and attempted to make eye contact with the barber. "Wha' I can't hear you?" The barber exclaimed, a little louder than he was speaking before. "She wanted to know where you were…where her mother was…" She said, not repeating her former sentence and instead pretending he heard her and went on. She did this a lot, it was like talking to herself only different, I guess.

"Hm, what'd you tell her?" He asked, wanting to know more, and moving closer. "I told her…you were traveling the world…and her mother…well she had already seen the world." With every word she said, she stumbled closer and closer to him, but he didn't step back, he didn't keep the distance, he didn't want to, or maybe he did, but he certainly didn't know how.

"You lied?" He inquired. "No, not lied…I stretched the truth, your little Johanna…was as innocent as I was." She looked down at the snow, and kicked it slightly with her toe box. "Hm, I knew you back then…innocent isn't the right word." He almost smiled, almost, but instead the corner of his lips just turned up a little before dropping back down into his usual frown.

"Wasn't I?" She breathed onto his neck. "You have a fucked up sense of innocence." He let his thumb trace her cheek bones. Talking about those times made him forget where he really was. There was no longer a distance between them. "Maybe you…were just too innocent." Her hand found its way around his neck as she inappropriately inched closer.

"Innocence just lost its charm…way back." She giggled, he caressed her face some more, like he didn't have control over his actions anymore. He closed his eyes, thinking over and over to himself, _Lucy, Lucy, Lucy_, but then his mind went back to the baker with her head rested on his chest breathing ever so slightly, her bosom heaving up and down with each little gasp of a breath. Corsets.

"Does murder have a new charm now?" He joked. "Yes…evil in disguise." She went along and looked up at him, as his hands tilted her chin up, their dark eyes meeting. His cold lips found her red ones, meeting for a kiss that stopped their train of thoughts and the night, and the fall of snow, and the temperature outside dropped from zero to negative a thousand, all at once, in just thirty seconds.

They stood there, in the dead of night, very late into the night on Christmas Eve, not expecting Santa Clause to climb down the chimney at any moment. The air smelled of smoke and their fingers were numb from the cold. The silence hovered over them like a grey rain cloud ready to explode at any minute, but just couldn't. In the dead of night, the baker was trying to collect her thoughts and the barber just couldn't sleep, and their path's crossed in memories of better days.

She was right, innocence lost its charm years ago. Her instinct had always been right. He too, was correct about his thoughts. The outside was a hundred degrees warmer than being huddled around a single fire. The demon barber of Fleet Street rarely left his shop…but the night he did, he didn't regret it, besides, he might finally get some sleep tonight.

**MERRY CHRISTMAS!**

_End note: Review?_


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